Ingmar Bergman meets Audie Murphy - I'm not kidding. Okay maybe I'm exaggerating but the filmmakers had obviously seen The Seventh Seal because Audie Murphy is an angel of death (a gunslinger) who rides into town and ends up playing a chess game with nice doctor Charles Drake. It's a very literate script, with lots of talk about death coming to us all and the importance of law and order, and full of enigmatic references to things that have happened in the past. (Gene Coon is the credited screenwriter). Murphy's killer is a fascinating character - he works by goading his victims into going to shoot him first, so he uses psychology (e.g. pretending to rape someone's daughter); he's quick on the draw but uses his brains more; he seems to develop a man crush on Drake because Drake has principles.
Director Jack Arnold handles things well, although occasionally the acting from the support cast is a bit iffy, and there are some odd/slow spots (e.g. Drake's father looks more like his brother, the ending is a little confusing when he really needed a pow). But it's generally an intriguing, intelligent western that should be better known.
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